Manchester-India Partnership to build better trade, tech ties

The newly-launched Manchester- India Partnership (MIP) aims at connecting Indian companies with northern England to further trade, investments, science and innovation cooperation between the two nations.

The MIP is a public-private initiative designed for building closer ties between Manchester and India encompassing the full scope of country-to-city ties, including trade, investment, science and innovation, connectivity and culture.

“A major target of the MIP will be to encourage direct air connectivity between the two countries to further broaden the existing economic and cultural links, with the Manchester airport, which is the sixth largest European gateway to India,” Manchester airport chief executive Andrew Cowan said.

Addressing the India-UK Createch summit that celebrates and explores the convergence of creativity and technology,held here recently, he said, “we are having discussions with the government of India, and a number of airlines have shown keen interest in direct flights between Manchester and India.”

Meanwhile, many English companies have shown keen interest to invest in India and have signed 58 million pounds worth of commercial deals in technology and creative sectors during the summit.

“Britain has shows its world-leading capabilities in the creative and tech sectors, while continuing to build strong ties with the fast-growing Indian economy.

“Over 60 British companies have travelled to India during this month-long celebration of Createch and met hundreds of Indian companies,” British minister trade and export promotion minister Baroness Rona Fairhead said.

Addressing the summit, she said the discussions held at the summit demonstrate “our commitments to continuing to forge creative, new technology-led partnerships between Britain and India.”

As an economic success story, the creative industries contributed 92 billion pounds to the British economy in 2016 and employed over 1.9 million.

Britain is the largest investor among the G20 nations in India and India is the fourth largest investor in England, she added.